Apple's iPad sales expected to drop to a record low in Q1 2016

The tech business is a harsh environment to survive it and even major players, such as Apple, often go through rough patches in terms of sales. A new report by Digitimes Research, suggests that Cupertino's line of tablets, the iPad family, is heading toward a huge sales decline in the first three months of 2016.

Apparently, market trends now indicate that the next quarterly shipment number will be 9.8 million - the lowest since the Q2 of 2011. That would be a whopping 39.1% decrease over Q4 2015 and a 20% decrease year-on-year.

The declining tablet sales are also not limited to Cupertino. On a market-wide scale, Digitimes Research estimates that 46.65 million tablets will be shipped in the first quarter of 2016. That would constitute a 28.6% decline from last quarter and an 8.6% year-on-year slowdown.

This means Apple is still expected to lead the flock with 21% of global tablet shipments, followed by Samsung with 14% and Lenovo with 7.2%. After that, there are: Amazon 5.8%, Huawei Device 4%, Asustek Computer 2.7%, Microsoft and TCL each with 2.6%, LG Electronics 1.8% and Acer 1.2%.

Another interesting statistic concerns preferred display sizes and it appear the 7-inch form factor is still the most popular and thus expected to account for 35.4% of tablet shipments. The list goes on as follows: 7.9-inch 13.8%, 8.x-inch 6.1%, 9.x-inch 23.8%, 10.x-inch 10.1% and 11-inch and above 10.8%.

This is no surprise, the sales trend is very clear and there is nothing to indicate that it will change anytime soon.
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